May 25, 2009

Summer Reading

It is an act of pure, unadulterated optimism perhaps, given the teacher training reports I have to finish, the mostly unread backlog of New Yorker and Yoga Journals, and my busy schedule. However, I picked up some summer reading this evening at Barnes & Noble. Zippy needed a medical dictionary, so we buzzed down.

Watership Down / Richard Adams. One of my favorite books of all time, but when I went to find my copy (a dog eared paperback from 1975, it was a high school summer reading list book) this spring, it was missing. So I picked up another copy. "Can you run?" hissed the cat. "I think not!" Curling up with this book (and many others) was a big part of my childhood, so I'm hoping for a rainy afternoon or a lazy summer weekend of reading bliss.

Olive Kittredge / Elizabeth Strout. Must have heard the author on NPR, soon after she won the Pulitzer for this book. Sounded right up my alley - a set of short stories linked by characters and place. Somewhere along the lines of "Beans of Egypt, Maine", perhaps the Louise Erdrich books.

The Abstinence Teacher / Tom Perrotta. Another NPR find. Sounded like a good read, interesting. Hardcover on the cut-out rack.

1 comment:

Watership Down. I read that one summer, back when we had a place in Wellfleet. A rabbit is making a home for himself in the yard this week. Wonder if he's read it.

I just went to B&N the other day to pick up some summer reading, books I'll read up in Connecticut. New Yorker writer Jean Mayer's " The Dark Side. " A spy novel by Christopher Reich. And two novels by a guy Pat Conroy is pushing. John Hart. NC resident. Lawyer. Our John Grisham.

And just finished two novels by William Gibson, who coined the word " cyberspace. " A Philip Dick ( Bladerunner ) kind of writer. Has his finger on the pulse of the internets and the Googles.